Cnido-site.Discharge

Volunteers, Staff and Others

2011-08-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

I've go into a volunteer project with two expectations: 1) the project may or may not be satisfying and could be frustrating and 2) I'll probably meet some really cool people. This was indeed the case this time. I didn't often feel like we were making much progress, but I did enjoy my Koh Rong companions.

I tried to get pics of everybody, but I had to borrow a few for this post. No, I'm not trying to look through my flash. (Photo by Declan)

MCC PEOPLE
When I first arrived, there were two volunteers around, plus an intern and a dive instructor. Cami (American/ Italian) and Ceri (Welsh/Londoner) were the volunteers. Cami had been on the island for almost a month by the time I arrived. At that point she had done a lot of teaching English, but not much coral reef surveying. She only overlapped with me for a week. We tried to get some surveying in before she left, but weren't terribly successful. Cami moved on to do other volunteer work in Phnom Penh.

Cami and BJ (photo by Ceri)

The volunteer that I worked with the most was Ceri, a middle-school math teacher from London. She was seriously into teaching English and getting kids to sing catchy tunes, often in a round, to learn the days of the week and other useful phrases and terms....yeah that damn song just started playing in my head again. Argh! I thought that I had managed to delete it! Since there weren't many people with reef experience around, I started training Ceri on reef identification on my first day of diving. Over time, Ceri got into identifying marine organisms and became quite skilled at it. Unfortunately, it didn't do us much good because we didn't complete many reef surveys. Ceri was the one that first found the seagrass beds in the bay when the two of us were out on a survey.

Ceri teaching the kids how to brush their teeth.

Ceri petting her pet worm. We're not sure if a worm had burrowed into her foot or not. If so, then it probably made its way to her lungs and then she swallowed the larvae. So right about now the adults would be pumping out eggs in her intestine. For some reason, Ceri was often thinking about parasitic worms.

When I arrived a German intern named Daniel was also on the island. He had been working on the project for 11 months, mostly on the neighboring island, and was around to help us get some reef surveys started. He also functioned as a jungle gym for the local kids. Daniel was great to have around. He always gave me material to make fun of and he knew the local reef fauna well. Plus, he would distract the kids when we were getting overwhelmed.

Child transportation in Koh Rong. Thanks, Daniel. Nid misses you dearly. Now she has to walk. (photo by Ceri)

Kylie was the coordinator and dive instructor for the island. Originally from Canada, he recently got engaged to a local girl from the village on Koh Rong Samloem. A week after I arrived, an anthropology student from Oxford named Declan arrived on the island. He was not a diver and was starting out by learning how to dive from Kylie.

From left to right: Declan, Ceri, Kylie, and Daniel. The beer is called Klang, which means "strong"

In my final week, Tina arrived from the UK. She's Swedish, but she's going to school at Cambridge in the UK. Fortunately, she lived in the US to learn, as she said, "proper English" before moving to the UK. I really enjoyed using that line with the other two Brits.

Ceri (hiding a cigarette), Declan and Tina

Tina and Ceri watching a heavy rainstorm from their window (not jail)

STAFF
Three times a day, Rim would cook us meals. I hadn't considered fried rice for breakfast, but I quickly came to enjoy it. By the way, Nid, from previous posts, is the daughter of Rim and Mr. Dam (the nicest guy on the island, who really would encourage people to Dike! Dike!).

Rim moving charcoal for our meal. (the charcoal was like my alarm clock, it choked me out of bed each morning)

Nid and Rim (phot by Ceri)

The "boys" that took care of us and ran the boat all looked younger than they were. Mr. Dot was the go-to guy for all kinds of things. He often saved us when we needed to say something in Khmer or needed to understand what someone was saying. He helped with our teaching by translating for us at times and he kept our SCUBA tanks full. Plus, Mr. Dot had some stylish shirts. Actually, almost all of the guys did. My ragged button up shirts could not compare.

The stylish Mr. Dot

Even in swim trunks Mr. Dot may sport a slick shirt. I was definitely the worst dressed guy around...except for Kylie.

Mr. Dot writing the Khmer for one of our lessons.

Then there was Mr. Worn. A name that was easy to remember. Worn kept our boat from hitting things and handled our SCUBA gear when we needed to get in or out of the water. He could be super serious, but sometimes he'd be a total goofball. Worn had a talent where he could sleep with his face smashed into the wooden floor and he legs tangled up above him in a hammock. Often Worn would be in some crazy hammock position.


Worn

I don't have a picture of Mr. Rong, but he was our boat driver and he was excellent.

An interesting note: Our staff along with their friends and many of the other villagers, including babies and children all wore facial bleaching cream, typically at night. I'm not sure of the origin of this, but I assume that sunscreen would be more effective and, perhaps, cheaper.

One of the boys washing off his facial bleaching cream.

Mr. T was our police chief and probably the jolliest guy in the village. One day Ceri and I were walking up one of the roads to check out the bay and he saw us. He came driving up in his air conditioned truck (probably the only AC on the island) and asked us to get in. Fortunately, we weren't being arrested, we were just being given the grand tour. He drove us all over the wide, unfinished roads of Koh Rong.

"Our Pets"
Two dogs "lived" with us. Katie, who belonged to Mr. Dam and Rim and was impregnated by BJ. I once saw Katie go to the bathroom on the boardwalk and then run madly around as a worm hung from her anus. She ran straight through our house yelping and swinging a tapeworm with a little feces attached. Maybe retelling this story is why Ceri was so worm-obsessed.

Katie

This woman loved BJ and Katie and they loved her. Their arteriosclerosis may also be from her.

Many other interesting people passed through while I was on the island and I don't have pics of everybody. This little post is here to remind me of some of them.

Girls of Koh Rong

2011-07-31T22:47:00.000-07:00

Village girls always stopping by to visit us. Or, if we walked through the village, we would hear them yelling "Hello!" from all around (Note: most kids in the village would yell this at us). The youngest of the girls would just waive and waive, or say "Hello" like a broken record.

The famous waiving baby of Koh Rong. It's amazing how fast kids picked up waiving. I waived to all kinds of little kids in Cambodia and they would look confused at first and then slowly start doing something like a waive. In the end, they probably became waiving fanatics like this little one.

She was a waiver too, but she was also skilled in rapid-fire hellos

A young girl from the far side of the village. At times we would hear hellos ringing out from very far away, usually when they spotted us somewhere across the bay.

The child that we saw the most was Nid. Her mother cooked for us and Nid often spent her days in our place. If you could slow down what Nid was saying you would realize that she was often repeating English sayings at an incredibly fast rate. Embedded in her English expressions was usually her name. One of her favorite expressions that she would yell at us was "HellomynameisNid." Rapid phrasing like this was common in the village. We'd often hear "HellohowareyouIamfinethanks." It really saved time. You knew they were doing fine before you even asked them.

It was possible for Nid to be peaceful....typically it was induced by the possibility of candy from Ceri, or an afternoon nap. Otherwise, she could be a bit of terror.

Nid liked to have her way. One day Nid's brother, Dal, had a balloon. I was sitting on our "porch" watching him play with it, when it exploded. Behind the exploded balloon was young Nid carrying a large butcher knife that she decided to use against her brother's balloon. She realized that I didn't like her running around with a large knife and went running off to the kitchen with it.

Nid laying in our kitchen/gear locker. Looks sweet, doesn't she...?

Other girls would stop by to visit regularly, one of them was Vid. She told us that she was 5 years old but she was bigger than most girls twice her age. Vid loved to repeat everything you said or count from one to five over and over again. I'd usually try to keep her going above five, but her spontaneous counting outbursts usually only went to five.

Ceri and Vid. Both hysterical.

At one point Vid really enjoyed having her hair braided by Ceri. It never seemed to last long, but she found it entertaining, nonetheless.

Once the word got out that we were cleaning cuts and bandaging boo-boos, we saw a lot of boo-boos. One of our resident, hyper-dramatic girls was Da. I cleaned a cut on her thumb one day and she was not happy with the sting from the alcohol. Most of the kids were really good at taking the pain. Impressive, actually. Da didn't like the cleaning, but she enjoyed the Band-aid....even though she would always take it off and smell it. (Band-aids may have been pretty cool things to have...perhaps even cooler than the stickers that Ceri would hand out at English lessons.) Da would love to scream and play very rough (e.g., hitting people) and she would feign fainting at regular intervals. Typically extended bouts of screaming and being dramatic would cause her to overheat and she'd need a break. The fleece pull-over probably helped with that. The presence of a camera pointed at anyone but her would instantly activate Da and she would run to be in the picture. She never really liked her picture though.

The hyper-dramatic Da.

Tina and a couple of girls. Da (center).

Indeed, the girls were fun and sometimes dramatic and none of us could really talk to one another, but we'd hang out and try anyway. They were a regular part of our day, stopping in to visit, have their picture taken, or play games.

Girls playing a game with a collection of stones.

One of my favorite girls on the island, was Na. She was super sweet, incredibly bright and very polite. Nat thought that my beard was quite funny, but that has been a typical response in Cambodia. Na was excellent in the English lessons, but she was never willing to write answers to our questions on the board, no matter how much I encouraged her.

Na. I'll miss her very much.

Na. Running to class because she was worried she was late. On sunny days the kids were usually late.

Girls sorting fish or working on the nets (Na on the right).

Each day, at around 5pm, the kids would start to gather around our place. They were waiting for class to start. I'm not convinced that they were actually looking at a clock or a watch or cell phone. Once the sun was low, they just started to show up. On cloudy days, they came over extra early.

No, we didn't jail them. They were outside of our window watching us, waiting for English Class.

Certainly the best students in our classes were the oldest girls. They knew much more than the rest, but none of us could ever seem to remember their names for more than a few moments. I even wrote them down, but I couldn't remember which name went with which girl. Ceri and I asked them their names so many times, that we eventually were too embarrassed to ask them again. Many Khmer names were very hard to pronounce correctly. Fortunately, Na and Da and Lin and Nid and Vid were some of our most regular visitors and we could get their names down.

The older girls knew the most English in our class and probably in the village.

Boys of Koh Rong

2011-07-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

From a very young age the boys on Koh Rong are out fishing. Often they fish from dawn to dusk. It's their entertainment and it's how they help feed their families. The youngest boys fish from the boardwalks between the houses and from the pier. They find scraps of old line and old fishhooks and wrap the line around cans or whatever they have. Sometimes they catch bait fish and use them to catch larger squirrel fish, grouper, snapper, bream and rabbit fish.

A young Koh Rong fisherboy wrapping line around n Ankgor beer can

Young boys sorting out a bunch of tangled line

Boys fishing between the boardwalk and our neighbor's house

These boys managed to catch a number of small squirrelfish and others

If there are boats docked in the village, the kids will often fish from the boats.

As the boys get older (probably 11-14), they tend to paddle out into the bay or sea on small boats made from layers of Styrofoam with baskets attached for their fish and equipment. Their paddles are made of many things, but they seam to usually be flexible, plastic trays.

A Styrofoam boat captained by a 12 or 13 year old fisherman.

These guys really wanted their picture taken

In many cases these young boys will travel far off shore and, occasionally, the get caught out in the elements.

Young boys paddling hard to get out of the storm.

Teenagers tend to start running the larger boats similar to the one as in the picture above (behind the Styrofoam vessel) and go considerable distances, often for most of the day.

Once the day of fishing was over, many of the boys ran down to the front of our house for their English lessons....the oldest boys would only show up if the older girls were there and then they'd hang off to the side and pretend not to be listening. Although the boys studied hard, only the youngest ones were willing to come up to our white-board and answer questions. The teenage boys needed some coaxing.

I'm really going to miss some of the boys (in fact, I miss many of them already) and I worry about what will happen to them in the future. I'm skeptical that the fish will always be there for them or their families. Although they work hard they also play a lot and if the island becomes a giant resort, they may become a tourist attraction.

Most all of the boys and girls were really friendly. In fact, most all of the villagers were very welcoming. There were a few villageres that I especially bonded with, one was named Bora. Bora was always on the move. If he wasn't fishing, he'd be running around in what looked like pajamas, doing cartwheels and kicks or swimming or hanging out at our place looking at books and playing thumb wars. Bora really loved English class...it was probably the songs that Ceri had that he enjoyed so much.

Bora and Katie (very pregnant)

Bora and our neighbor girl Lin, waiting for class on a rainy day.

Bora and Lin studying their notebooks from class.

If the kids knew that you were pointing a camera at them, they would instantly turn into hams. Here's the boys swimming and showing off for the camera (Bora is in the colorful, striped shirt)

The middle-school-aged boys would typically attend class, but they really seamed to get excited on the day of the three-hour tour when they started asking me what the marine critters on our posters were called. After that day, they would stop by and practice all of the time. I wish that I'd had more pictures to show them because they really wanted to know more. The young-man below was especially good at naming urchins, giant clams, coral and fish.

Carrying dried leaves for roofs and for fish traps

Someday I would love to return to Koh Rong and see what has happened to all of these kids. I'm afraid that the changes to the island would be overwhelming and sad for me to see. I wish them the best of luck in navigating the changes ahead. Maybe we did some small part in preparing them. I can at least hope so.

An Island that's about to Change, A LOT

2011-07-27T22:43:00.000-07:00

Recently, Koh Rong was an island that consisted mostly of dense jungle. There were a few small fishing villages, the one that I lived in, for example, and there were some lovely beaches (although, like other uninhabited beaches that I've visited, quite a bit of trash washed up on their shores).

A recent satellite image of Koh Rong

Then the island was sold and HUGE roads that mostly go nowhere were put in. Some of these roads are about as wide as a four-lane highway.

Very soon the aerial view of the island will be very different. Here's a quote regarding phase one of the plan for the island. The plan for the island can be viewed here.

Phase One will include "two spa resorts, 160 estate villas, a beach club, five restaurants and a lagoon". Each villa and room will have sea view and privacy. In the same time, infrastructure will be built; including an airport in the middle of the island, port, roads, power, water and telecommunications.

from http://www.kohrong-island.com/

In the map above, you can see the fishing village. It's the tiny bit of orange. As you can see the amount of development planned is significant. There is a slick developer website set up about the investment opportunity on Koh Rong here.

Although the claim is that the island will be developed in an environmentally sound way, it is hard to imagine the airport, numerous roads, casinos, resorts, golf courses, and resulting run off and feces will do much good for the reefs or the mangrove or the seagrass or the small fishing community. Currently, tourism mostly consists of small bungalows on a few of the beaches. I do hope that the plan for a marine protected area goes through and that those that wish to maintain their way of life in the village are able to do so. There will be many new economic opportunities for the villagers. Perhaps, if they know enough English they will get jobs with the tourists. Otherwise, there will not only be a flood of tourists, but also a flood of workers to the island. I don't know where that would leave the wonderful people that we worked with in the fishing village.

Coral and Parasites

2011-07-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

Often when I take pictures of critters on the reef, I am trying to show how beautiful the residents are.

Beautiful coral polyps off of Koh Rong

However, coral reefs around the world, including those around Koh Rong are up against a lot. Polyps on the reef are being smothered by sediment, which prevents them from feeding through photosynthesis with their symbiotic zooxanthellae and prevents them from feeding with their tentacles.

I tried to dust the coral head above off, so that the polyps would be free of the clinging silt. Underneath I found bleached coral that is likely to be dead soon. The coral could recover, but conditions would have to improve. Yesterday I did I dive at about 13 meters over vast expanses of silt. Normally there would be many critters (e.g., urchins, sea cucumbers, and seahorses) crawling across the bottom, but we did not see anything like that. We saw lines left by trawlers. These boats are not supposed to trawl in areas that are less than 20meters deep, but clearly they had been doing so and fairly recently. The sea floor had been cleared of much of its life and in the process silt had been stirred up. The silt greatly reduces the visibility in the water and covers everything. Even this scorpionfish.

Scorpionfish sitting on long-dead coral that is covered in algae.

Reefs already have plenty of other problems to deal with: rising sea temperatures, anchor damage, dynamite fishing, coral harvesting, harvesting of algae-eating fish and diseases. I have seen a number of diseases in the Caribbean, but I was exposed to a new one here, a parasite. The pink on the coral below is part of a trematode (flatworm) life cycle.

I'm pretty fascinated by parasites and their complicated life cycles. Most trematodes require a vertebrate and a mollusc to complete their life. This one includes a snail, a coral polyp and a butterflyfish. It's always hard to know where to begin in a cycle, but we could start with the fish. The butterflyfish deficates out eggs that hatch and infect a snail, grow in the snail and gives rise to a swimming stage, which burrows into the coral polyps. The worm is then encysted in the polyp and, apparently, the polyps are easier for a butterfly fish to eat. Butterflyfish prey on polyps and thus consume the encysted worms. The worm matures and produces more eggs. Then it all starts over.

Trematode infection on hard coral

There are other parasites going around on the island. Many volunteers, especially on the other island, walk around barefoot in the sand. A fine mixture of feces is present in the sand and in the fecal/sand mixture are worms. I'm not sure if they are threadworms or hookworms, I've only seen the feet of people that get them. You see, the worm burrows into their foot (some evidence suggests that they are stimulated by certain chemicals present on feet) and travels in their blood to their lungs, where they are coughed up and swallowed. Finally, the worms mature in the intestines and begin pumping out eggs that go with the feces into the soil. Then volunteers or other people feel the sand between their toes and start the cycle all over. Pretty cool, eh?

Searching the Seafloor for Seagrass and Seahorses

2011-07-09T21:49:00.000-07:00

Poor visibility on the reefs has been preventing us from making much progress on reef surveys. I feel very bad for the coral that are being covered in silt. They are bleaching and then dying from the sediment. In an attempt to be productive in other ways, I began searching for seagrass in the bay near the village with Ceri and Daniel. We hoped to find patches of intact seagrass and in the seagrass we hoped to find seahorses, which are listed on the endangered fisheries list in Cambodia. Our first search was unproductive (but I did see a cool cuttlefish, a large grouper and a saddle-backed anemone fish!). On Friday, Ceri and I decided to go out again and search another part of the bay. I spotted a tiny piece of intact mangrove and I though that we might have some luck there. We got out of the boat in full SCUBA gear to find we were standing in 2 feet of water. Nonetheless, we took a bearing and began our survey. No luck. The water was getting too shallow to swim in. We turned 90 degrees and started again. Holding a rope between us so that we were traveling in the same direction even if we couldn't see one another, we didn't go far before Ceri began tugging wildly on the rope. This is what she found.

The first seagrass bed that we found in the bay. (Ceri found it first)

The seagrass was very short and Ceri started pointing and talking into her regulator. Somehow I managed to understand that she had seen a seahorse. It survived her enthusiasm, I think, but was floating about the bottom as though it was a tiny piece of drift wood. Soon after I spotted another one and it was exhibiting the same passive floating along the bottom.

One of the first seahorses that we spotted.

As we searched the seagrass, we found many other interesting species.

A blenny poking out from an old clam shell

We spotted filefish floating around and looking remarkably like green leaves. One looked like a very large green leaf, which was a bit more obvious in seagrass that was only a few inches high.

A large filefish acting like a big green leaf.

Then we spotted a tiny little filefish that was very well camouflaged in the short seagrass.

In the end, we spotted 3 or 4 seahorses and were very happy to have found both the seahorses and the seagrass. We were finally feeling productive!

Although we were having a great time in the seagrass, we had plenty of time left on the dive, so we continued our search for another patch. Since the water was only a foot deep at this point, I simply stood up and looked across the surface. I saw a dark patch ahead and we began to swim. It was another, smaller, patch of seagrass with much longer blades. We couldn't swim over the top of it because it was so shallow, so we didn't spot any more seahorses, but finding the grass was great news. Buoyed by our good fortune, we are excited to continue searching the bay with the hope of finding many more intact patches.

A three hour tour with drunk military leaders

2011-07-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

I had the strangest boat ride today. It all began days ago. Apparently there was a holiday in Cambodia on Thursday. But, this story begins on Wednesday. That evening two of the five members of MCC on Koh Rong were missing, our German intern, Daniel, and our local director/dive instructor, Kylie. They were gone most of the evening and stumbled in that night. The next morning they told their tale. They were being held hostage....in a very polite sort of way. One of the village leaders, we'll call him Sandcat, (one of the three people on the island that we greet in a different, more respectful way) was back and he wanted to drink. Daniel and Kylie happened to be at the bar when Sandcat was around and they were asked to join him for a drink. They couldn't turn down the offer, so each time he said to finish their drink they did. Drink, after drink, after drink. The next morning Daniel, not feeling all that well from the heavy drinking from the night before, walked through the village to buy some bread. Sandcat was in the bar that morning and invited Daniel to join him for a drink. Of course, he could not refuse. I figure that Daniel went MIA in Cambodia at 0900. A few hours later Kylie received a call from the captive Daniel and was instructed to go to the Karaoke bar. Presumably if he wanted to see Daniel. Kylie could not refuse. Upon arriving at the bar, he was given beer and instructed to drink which would please Sandcat. Around this time, the Karaoke began to ring loudly throughout the village (Khmer people seem to love Karaoke). I heard the same song over and over and over. It was torture and I was a hundred yards or more away!
With two members missing, the rest of us were left with little to do and no boat to escape in. We knew what our fellow members were going through, but we were hesitant to rush in only to be cut down in the same fashion. I decided to sleep on it. I took a nap. When I awoke, I was all alone. The other two members must have attempted a rescue. Now my team was all in danger, but I was powerless to save them from the free drinks and requests to chug cheap Thai beer and eat dog. I decided to sit and wait. Perhaps a plan would come to mind or Sandcat would take pity on my team. I sat outside our house and began to read. It wasn't long before I was completely surrounded. At least a dozen members of the village, ages 4 to 12, surrounded me. I was backed into a corner. I could hardly move. Their hands grabbed at me and they looked carefully at what I was reading (the bibliography of the book, actually) and they said, "Hello! How are you?" Not knowing what to do, I replied with what we had taught them, "I am fine, thank you." That seemed to work. They followed by asking what my name was. I thought that it could be a trick because they had asked me this at least a dozen times before. Then, completely unexpected, they began pointing to their body parts and started naming them. "Nose!", they cried. "Head!" rang out. Soon a chorus of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." I thought that everything was going to be OK. Suddenly though, they switched to Khmer. They wanted me to reply in Khmer, to mimic them. I tried and they were soon exasperated. I was obviously not pronouncing things as well as they had hoped. Some of them began to drift away only to be replaced by others. Soon I was surrounded by a half-dozen boys age 8-14. They looked at me and then looked at the poster, written in Khmer, behind me. The poster depicted many of the organisms of the coral reef. They knew these organisms, but they didn't know their names in English. They began pointing at pictures and asking names. "Urchin," I said. Followed by "Coral"and "fish" and "Coral"and "Coral" and "giant clam" and "anemone." They wanted more. Each gave me their notebook so that I could write the names for each of the creatures. Once supplied with the names, they put down the Khmer name and the Khmer letters that would create sounds like urchin and coral. Then, it all switched on me again, they wanted me to learn the Khmer names. Their eyes were rolling and they slowed the names to speeds that were clearly painful for them, hoping that I might at least get close. By this time, it was 5:40pm. My team was still in trouble. Minutes seemed like hours and then, finally, I saw them. They looked rough. They stumbled down the boardwalk and I knew that they were safe. Fortunately, they were just in time to help me teach the kids English for a half hour.
That brings us to this morning. We were planning on getting an early dive in to search for sea grass beds in the bay and then planned to leave for the mainland at 1200. The morning dive went very well (it will be another post), but after the dive Kylie's phone rang. It was Sandcat. It was still morning. It was time for more beer. Our departure was delayed and then delayed and then we were informed that Sandcat and a number of members from the Cambodian Navy were to join us on our trip. We loaded onto the boat. Daniel came aboard and told us that there was a very high-ranking officer from the Navy that was going to join us on our trip. This officer was to be greeted with the high form of greeting. I was about to experience the same fate that my team had. He boarded with a case of beer and three other men in uniform. The cans of beer were immediately distributed and we were all asked to drink. Thus began our very strange three-hour tour.
Our boat headed out and we said (in Khmer) "Cheers"over and over. About 15 minutes into the ride, the officer noticed that we were not heading toward the mainland. This was true. We were heading to the neighboring island to pick up a few other volunteers. He told the boat-driver to stop and take us back. We convinced him that it would only be for a minute, so the beer began to flow again.

Embarrassing Photo #1

Daniel and the principle of Koh Rong (also in attendance)

Fortunately, Ceri and I managed to make most of ours flow over the side of the boat. As we cruised along the navy people seemed to not recognize that round-bottomed boats tilt A LOT if they are not balanced. Each time they would stand up and switch sides the boat tilted severely to one side or another. Fortunately, we did made it to Koh Rong Samloem and docked. Almost everybody got off. We all felt trapped. We were going to have to get back on that boat, and in order to not offend the officer, we would have to continue to drink. Not only was he a high-powered person in the military, he was carrying a gun. We had to keep him happy. Very happy. We waited and waited for everybody to return. Finally, after about a half an hour, they returned....with a case of beer. We got underway and the Anchor beer case was opened. It contained about 6 cans of Coke and several different kinds of beer. The beers were distributed. We said Cheers with the special hand positioning showing respect, although I doubt there was much of it left in the group. Back underway, the drunks got more drunk and my beer continued to flow into the sea. Then it really got strange. The Officer started taking pictures of himself and others in mock embrace. The Officer stood and fell from one side of the boat to the other to embrace Daniel, a 6 foot plus, 21 year old German. That was odd. Then he did it again. And again. And again. He goosed the other men by grabbing between their legs. He took out his camera phone and took pictures with his arms around the girls on board. He pretended to be a coy school girl. This behavior went on and on and on. I stayed as far away as possible.

Ceri super happy to be involved in this international incident

I avoided all eye-contact. The Officer put away his gold camera phone and took out his white an purple smart phone. I imagined that he was uploading photos to Facebook and playing Farmville. Our boat lurched and swayed from side to side as the antics progressed and the swell came at us from an angle. Our engine took on water and we had to stop for the bilge to clear the excess. We wanted off of this cruise. We wanted off badly. Finally, we got close to the port. Of course, the Officer saw that they party was about to end and he wanted to be sure to keep in touch. He didn't friend us on Facebook, but he took down some phone numbers. He added numbers to his phone and offered to take the ladies in his car all around Sihonoukville. Finally, we made it to the pier. We got off. We got a ride in a tuktuk and got out of there before things got any more strange.

Pigs on stilts

2011-07-08T06:16:00.000-07:00

I found out that directly across from our house (behind the girl carrying stuff on her head in the previous post) there are pig pens. They're really quiet pigs. There are nets just out front too, where, I believe, people put fish to fatten them up.

Living on Stilts

2011-07-02T04:14:00.000-07:00

I recently arrived in Cambodia to work with a group called Marine Conservation Cambodia (MCC). For the next month, I will be living in a small fishing village on the island of Koh Rong. If you want to do a virtual flyby, then you can go to Google Maps or Google Earth and paste the following coordinates: 10.711382,103.309227. Zoom in to see the village. I'm in the second to last house on the boardwalk. Today I'm on the mainland, so I thought that I'd take advantage of the internet access and make a quick post about my first week and why I am here.

THE VILLAGE

Fishing Village on Koh Rong

The island of Koh Rong has a few small villages; I'm living in the largest village, which has about 200 people, most of whom live in houses on stilts. Cambodia sold the island to a developer from China and it is destined for development. The village lacks plumbing. Water comes from rain and a few wells on the island and all waste, human and otherwise, goes directly into the sea. Some people have generators and have power at night. The power is probably most obvious in the 3 bars in the village and we use a generator at night to provide some light (it's absolutely deafening, however). There are probably 8 stores on the island (most people seem to be selling something from their home), but many of the people fish for a living. The island also has cell phone service and almost everybody has a cell phone. I guess with 4 billion cell phone contracts in the world, the chances are pretty high that folks on a remote fishing village in Cambodia would also be connected.

View from MCC house

Toilets here are the squat type and showers are with a bucket of rainwater. (On the mainland the toilets are mostly the same, but they have a sprayer similar to your kitchen sink instead of toilet paper). I didn't expect bars, stores, and cell phones on the island or that the island would be anything but peaceful. Despite its small size, it is the noisiest place that I have ever lived. Dozens of fishing boats start up at 4am (many of these boats are fishermen that come to the village to dock, but do not live on the island), roosters crow all of the time and dogs fight throughout the day (yes, there are dogs and cats all over this village on stilts -- no, they are not exactly house broken...).

Regional fishing boats tied together waiting out an oncoming storm

Needless to say, I wake up very early. I wake up early because it's nearly impossible to sleep through the noise and in part because our local cook begins lighting a charcoal stove in the kitchen right next to my bed.

Our Kitchen

Around this time, my room fills up with smoke and I have to climb out from my mosquito net and escape to the outside for some air. In case you didn't know, according to the World Health Organization cooking with charcoal and similar materials is thought to be the fourth worst health risk in developing countries and the cause of millions of deaths from resulting respiratory disease.

There are currently 5 people on the island working with Marine Conservation Cambodia, but there are many more living on a nearby island working on a project that has been running for a few years. On Koh Rong, there is a German intern, a Canadian dive instructor, a British math teacher, an Italian student, and myself. Our house has a bathroom, a kitchen a room for our local helpers, and three bedrooms, two with bunk beds.


The MCC House (we climb down the ladder to get into our boat)

It is the rainy season and I was expecting a lot of rain and very hot and humid conditions. It's definitely hot and humid, but I thought it would be much worse. It has not been raining too much. Most of the rain has come at night, but there have been a few storms that lasted all day.

Village in a rainstorm as seen from my bedroom window

Outside of the village, most of the island is dense jungle full of snakes (cobra, king cobra, vipers, etc), so there has been very little development until recently. The owner of the island has started building roads and there is a plan to put in an airstrip. The oncoming development, if not done properly, will lead to considerable environmental degradation and severe disruption of the village and the villagers' culture. The goal of MCC is to encourage this development to be environmentally friendly, culturally sensitive, and beneficial to the villagers.

THE PROJECT

Marine Conservation Cambodia has been working to preserve the villages, the culture of the villages, the reefs and the jungles on and around the islands. They have been working on an island nearby for a few years, but the project on Koh Rong is only a few months old. A number of goals have already been met by MCC. For example, the villages on the islands were registered with the government, so that the people could not be evicted by the developers. In addition, a number of rare and threatened species (e.g. sea horses) have been documented on the island, which has helped build a case for conservation. Data have been collected by volunteers regarding the reefs and seagrass beds around the island and areas have been designated for preservation. Ultimately, the goal is to set aside some portions around the islands as marine protected areas. Furthermore, on Koh Rong Samloem, the inhabited island nearby, the villages have evicted fishermen that were using destructive fishing habits and who were unwilling to stop. In addition, the villagers now patrol their own waters and fine or kick-out unauthorized fishermen (e.g., Vietnamese fishermen) or boats using destructive fishing methods. The island that I am on has not been investigated nearly as well. The locations of the reefs and seagrass beds are not well known and the diversity has not been well-documented. My role on the island will be to help collect data on the reefs and help identify areas that may need the most preservation. I may also try to help document birds that are on the islands. Plus, I will train other volunteers to collect data (in fact, although I don't know the local reefs, I had to start training other volunteers as soon as I arrived because there was no training in place). Both islands are also involved in teaching local children some English. Teaching English to the kids is something that I was initially uncomfortable with because it seems to be disrupting the Khmer culture and a classic form of Westernizing the population; however, the reality is that these islands are soon to be developed and overrun with tourists. There doesn't seem to be any way around that. For the locals to have a chance at getting jobs as their island changes, they will have to be able to speak English. It is an unfortunate reality and the change is coming fast. Fortunately, the kids really love learning English! They show up early and they stay late. It's pretty amazing how fast they learn. By contrast, I'm picking up Khmer at a pitifully slow pace. But, it is a real challenge to teach a language to someone when you can't talk to them in their own language first. It would be like walking into a Spanish class where the instructor could not speak any English.

DIVING
I have made a few dives since I have arrived to get familiar with the reef and to train other volunteers how to recognize sponges, hard corals and soft corals, etc. The visibility has been pretty bad (4-5 meters), so pointing out fish to identify has been challenging. Most of the divers here blame the trawlers in the area, but there is a lot of waste entering the water too, so I think that may be contributing to algal blooms. We hope to begin forming a plan this coming week to collect preliminary data on the health of the reefs near the villages. From what I can tell, some of the reefs are very nice, but others are in rough shape. I haven't seen a seahorse yet, but I hope to see at least one before I go. I'll end this long-winded post with a few pics of what I've seen on my dives so far.

A nudibranch next to a long-spined urchin. Is this the front or the back?

Another tiny nudibranch

A couple of curled up Crinoids

Coral Clams (very common on the reefs here, but new to me)

An Anemone Fish in an anemone (this was a first for me to see!)

A large anemone. If you know me, then you know I like taking pictures of anemones. There were fields of these on one reef.

A sea cucumber on a barrel sponge. They are often found on these sponges here.

Sound Explorations on a New Moon

2010-07-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post a long time ago, but apparently I forgot to post it! (Hopefully, you get the title.)

I began this blog to document my sabbatical year at Yakima Valley Community College. One of my goals following my sabbatical was to develop and offer a marine biology course at YVCC. You might be thinking that Yakima isn't exactly coastal, but with 71% of the world covered in ocean, we're all sort of "coastal." What you do from day to day probably impacts the ocean in some way (think food and carbon dioxide emissions). After six weeks of studying the ocean floor, tides, currents, and phyla and classes of marine organisms, I took my marine biology class to Salmon Beach in Tacoma. Below are some pictures from my spring 2010 class.

Spiny, Tough Skin

2010-06-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

I realize that this is the Cnido-site and not the Echino-blog, which is a really neat blog by the way, but I often manage to take very bad pictures of Echinoderms (sea stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, brittle stars, etc.). My solution is to crop the pics way down and look at the beautiful patterns on the echinoderms', well, dermis. Echinoderm really means spiny skin (think echidna, a pretty spiny little bugger, and dermis). I now have plenty of close up Echinoderm pics so I can present some of my favorites. Since I always lose track of old pictures, most of these were taken recently at Sund Rock in Hood Canal. All are of sea stars, except one sea cucumber. Can you guess which is a sea cucumber? If you into Echinoderm close-ups like I am, then check out my previous posts from Hawaii which had a number of pics of urchins and a crown-of-thorns sea star too.

Repairing Links

2010-06-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

I know that day after day you've been logging onto "Cnido-site Discharge" patiently waiting for me to fix all of the videos that haven't been working. Finally, after a year of your constant visiting to the site, I have had time to repair the html so that the videos once again work. I apologize for the hundreds of hours that you have wasted waiting for these repairs to be complete. When Google took down their "google pages" site, where the files were hosted, every link was broken. I now have a new host, so you can spend countless hours replaying these videos and enjoying the content within. Thanks again for your patience.

Run over by a Moon Snail

2010-06-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, you guessed right. This moon snail is running over a couple of opalescent nudibranchs. Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh .......... Nooooooooooooo ....... Waaaaaatch ..... Ooooouuuuuut .... Fooooor ..... thaaaaaat ..... Snaaaaaiiiil... ! ! ! ! !

New Tunes

2010-06-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

I decided to update the "Random Tunes" section because it has been a while. Once this quarter is over, I'll post about my BIOL 140 (Marine Biology) class that I taught this spring.

Full Circle: Part 2

2009-07-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Fifteen years ago I went on a summer exchange to the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I was testing out a childhood dream of becoming a marine biologist. I took my first marine biology courses along with oceanography and I began to scuba dive. Two weeks ago, I returned to the Big Island of Hawaii to see it again, dive it again and refresh my memories of those days. Here are some pictures from my dives there.

Full circle

2009-06-10T22:43:00.000-07:00

I started this blog about a year ago as my sabbatical began. Now it is over and I returned home for a few days. Just behind these mountains is Anaconda, MT, where I grew up.

Oyster Bay Chickee: Before the Big Paddle

2009-04-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

Feeling has returned to my arms and here is a picture from just before departing on 18 hours of near-continuous paddling with my buddy, Dan, that left me with no sensation in my left arm. Use your mouse to scroll left and right over the image. It may take a few moments to load. NOTE: when there is more than one panorama on the page that's loaded, the other panoramas don't work. If you want to see the other panoramas, then click on the title of the post to open it in a new window.

Numbness and The River of Grass

2008-12-06T18:06:00.000-08:00

I spent 5 days in the wilderness of the Everglades over Thanksgiving. It's a long story and it will take many posts to discuss it all, but it didn't go as planned and a few problems have left my left hand numb. I'm not sure if or when I'll have feeling again in it. You should know a few things about the Everglades: 1) It's really big and takes a long time to get from point to point in a canoe and 2) It's different than you might think. A large portion of the Everglades is sedge grass (more on this later). I didn't expect to see what looks like a prairie underwater, but it's a huge part of the park. Here's a panorama of this portion of the park. Run your mouse left or right on it to see the whole picture. As you can see, my buddy Joe Loveland made this little application for me, so that I could show this picture. Thanks Joe! (Typing this is odd since I can't feel what my left hand is typing!) NOTE: when there is more than one panorama on the page that's loaded, the other panoramas don't work. If you want to see the other panoramas, then click on the title of the post to open it in a new window.

Consumption: Past, Present and Near Future

2008-12-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

I recently took a trip to Key West. Here. I can prove it. See. I was in southern Florida but closer to Cuba than to Miami. I even took the obligatory sunset shot. There was plenty to see in the Keys, but some of the most memorable sights were of disturbing levels of consumption. No. Not just of alcohol or other recreational drugs, but consumption of the sea.

The Ghost of Consumption Past: Turtle Soup

Historically, sea turtles were a favorite on many sailing ships. They weren't difficult to catch and they could be kept alive in the bottom of the boat and killed as food was needed. In the late 1800's sea turtles were caught and canned in Key West. As you might expect, most of the turtles were caught off of the shores of other, poorer countries, in this case Nicaragua. Turtles were placed on their backs and their flippers were sewn together to keep them from flapping about. After being brought back to the Keys, they were kept in crowded bins called kraals and then slaughtered for turtle soup and then canned. This occurred until the 1970's. As has happened with every major fishery in the world in modern times, the turtle fishery collapsed. Overharvesting is probably not the main cause of collapse in this case; drownings in fishing nets, pollution and habitat destruction all contributed greatly. By the early 1970s sea turtles were protected in the US and the fishery ended. Only 7 species of sea turtles exist on Earth today and 6 of those species are listed as endangered or critically endangered (there's not enough data on the 7th). With how many times over-consumption of natural resources has led to huge crashes, I'm sure that we've learned our lesson.

The Ghost of Consumption Present: Cheap Trinkets From the Sea
After leaving the turtle cannery museum a little nauseous, I soon got really ill. I walked into one of many shell shops in the Keys. It seemed as though I was in some other country. Here are some of the wares that you could purchase in such a shop.

Shells, of course. And they're cheap. And most are from other countries. Poor ones. Yay!

How about sea stars from the Philippines? Dirt cheap! Why buy seastars from the Philippines when you're in Florida? Because they're cheap! And who's reading the label anyway? And where's the Philippines anyway?

Buy a gross, if you like! We can always get more!

Do you need coral, but hate busting it off of the reef yourself? Buy coral from someone else's reefs. Small coral heads, or large ones, it's your choice!!

Perhaps you're interested in something handcrafted?

These hangings are only $2.00. What a deal. Between shell collecting, assembly and shipping, you'd think that maybe they'd be a little bit more expensive to produce. Thank goodness that they're not! Need something even cheaper? How about a shell pelican?

If shells aren't your thing, then you could always look in the vertebrates section.

Interested in shark jaws or a few hundred of them?

Need an alligator head, but hate dealing with Ebay? We have a deal for you. Pick your size.How about a pufferfish blow-out sale?

Googly eyes are added at no extra charge and are extra hilarious. Can you believe only $10 for these beauties?

Perhaps you desire something with a softer touch. There are piles of sponges to choose from. Good thing these aren't soaking up our seas anymore! Be sure to check out the creatures made from sea sponges too!

I guess that we can assume that these resources will always be here for us to exploit (hopefully there will always be cheap labor to make our needed shell pelicans too!). I'd hate to see a world where we couldn't buy a shark skull, bath sponge and shell pelican all in one place and all for less than $20.

Ghost of Near-Future Consumption
Listen to the news and it's clear that there is great hope that we'll all go out and buy lots of stuff to stimulate the economy. (Warning: I'm probably going to go off here.) My wish is that you'll consume less this year. Try it. Fewer motorized toys, electronic gadgets, clothes and jewelry would probably do most of us good. It can be really hard to give other things. After 5 years of giving recording of me on guitar that I spent 100s of hours making and 100's more hours worrying about, I always felt bad giving them as gifts. That seems stupid, but I was never able to shake the nagging feeling that I was being cheap by giving something so small and insignificant. Hence, I'm not making CDs anymore (although they're available on request). Truly, one of the most significant Christmas presents that I ever received was a basket of simple things (e.g., papertowels) given to me by someone who could hardly afford to buy them at the time. It was truly giving. I hope that you are creative this year (maybe give your loved ones experiences or a laugh, or stimulate their mind or spirit or help them help others). Ideally, give of yourself even though it is scary. It hurts when someone doesn't care for what we bought them, but it's crushing when they don't care for something that we made. If we all did it, however, I think that it would be easy. Do me one favor this year. Don't buy me a seashell pelican. I already have two.

Cold tolerance, Wilderness, Thanksgiving and No Food For Thought

2008-11-25T16:46:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh, there's nothing like chillin' in the subtropical climate of South Florida (just south of Miami). No, I didn't tranfer to a fishing boat in Alaska. I'm still working on coral reef fish surveys in Florida. Here we are (Max, Shelby and Vanessa from left to right) trying to stay warm BEFORE getting in the 68 degree water for our dive. Indeed, the weather is warmer than I've ever experienced around Thanksgiving time, but I don't know that I feel that warm. My loss of cold tolerance seems to be compensating for relatively warm climate. I think that I did too much sweating in Bonaire.
Things are going to be quiet at Biscayne National Park, so I'm going to slip into the backcountry wilderness of the Everglades for Thanksgiving. With 1,296,500 acres, the Everglades has the the largest wilderness area east of Mississippi to explore.

I won't get the chance to get mauled by giant, overly playful dogs while having Thanksgiving with my sister in Washington this year, but I hope that you have a Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your time with family and friends.
Although there is no shortage of reasons or stories to remind you to be thankful, I heard an especially powerful story on NPR this morning that I think you should listen to. This audio slideshow regarding the food crisis in Zimbabwe is an excellent reminder of how lucky you are and how far we have to go to care for the less fortunate.

Entering the Prickly Zone Part 2

2008-11-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

A recently published internet video exposed a team of biologists passing through a mangrove to gain access to a thin band of shore lovingly called the prickly zone. This zone is not easy to get to and, as you may expect, it's not a pleasant stay. It's full of, well, pokey things --pokey cacti, thorny plants, and even sharp coral rock. The crack team infiltrated the prickly zone to monitor a population of critically endangered, but not yet listed, species. I can't tell you the island because it's better if you don't know, but the species is Opuntia corallicola. I find enjoyment in that genus name, Opuntia because it really is pointed. It's the semaphore pricklypear cactus, not to be confused with the other major cactus found in the prickly zone, the dildo cactus (Cephalocereus millspaughii). Yes, that is what it is called (Go ahead. Google it. Just don't blame me for what you find.), but some people call it pipe organ cactus (pictured to the left). Wild populations of Florida Semaphore Cactus occur on only a couple of islands in the world (Keys of Florida) and there aren't many semaphore cacti left on these islands. In fact, the status of this little cactus is depressing; the genetic diversity in the populations is tiny and there are only a handful of adult individuals left. What's worse yet is that this cactus seems to have a hard time reproducing sexually, perhaps due to meiotic problems associated with polyploidy (i.e., it has a lot of copies of chromosomes and it isn't very successful at going through meiosis to producing gametes). Thus, it reproduces asexually by dropping pads. Some individuals do end up budding despite this. Historically, the cactus was much more widespread on the Florida Keys, but development and poaching extirpated the cactus from most of its range. Despite being incredibly endangered it is not yet Federally recognized as endangered. Being pokey instead of fuzzy probably makes it harder to get much attention, except when you're trying to wrap a tag around one of the endangered pokey plants, as Max Tritt is attempting here. Opuntia has a knack for getting your attention when working with it closely. When in the prickly zone, you don't want to sit, kneel, stand too tall, or touch anything without looking carefully at it. If you get careless, you'll probably have a dildo cactus poking you in the back and pieces of Opuntia stuck in your knees. I reached to the back of my head at one point and found a cactus pad embedded in my scalp. Let me tell you finding out that it was there didn't help because all I realized in that discovery was that it was now firmly embedded in my hand.

This sabbatical has been full of different experiences (we were trying to catch a dove today -- brings back memories-- and we caught an invasive green iguana yesterday---recipe coming soon).

Donating Blood Part 2: My Turn -- Entering the Prickly Zone

2008-11-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

One of my first blog posts was about a group of poor PSU students donating blood. This time it was my turn. A crack team was assembled. Our mission: approach a top-secret key (I called them cayes when in Belize --they're pronounced Key and it's just an island, OK?), penetrate the fringing mangroves, and infiltrate the prickly zone. Why? Good question. What's a prickly zone? Also a good question. You'll have to wait for the answers. However, I was able to smuggle out some footage of our team entering the site. This is exclusive footage. You cannot find it anywhere else. (note: I had to record a guitar track for the clip to cover any classified communication in the stream.)

This post will self-destruct in.........

Coral Popsicles and Green Epoxy

2008-11-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

"Don't Touch the Coral!" Touching it can kill it. Coral looks hard, but are extremely delicate. On my first day at Biscayne NP, I touched a lot of coral. I was handling it like crazy. I was playing with coral Popsicles. So what's up with these coral Popsicles? They represent a long-term (your-lifetime-plus-100-years long-term) project run by Richard Curry (picture to come soon) here at Biscayne aimed at saving some of the coral reefs of Florida. Here's the deal. Boats run aground in this park all of the time. They crash on the reef (there are wrecks everywhere around here --- there's even a section of this national park that is basically controlled by England because it has a wreck here.). When they crash, they destroy coral. So what can be done to help save the reef? Well, some folks go out and try to reset fallen coral and secure them so that they'll stay and then the little fragments go into making coral Popsicles. Coral pieces are collected and sawed down into little chips. Those coral chips are places on green epoxy attached to a rod that has a bar code on it. Voila. Coral Popsicle. Boards with holes are then placed in protected areas in the bay and the little Popsicles are set into the boards and the coral is left to grow. This project is a serious test of patience. It may take about 10 years for the little chip to grow into a little ball that can be sawed off and placed back onto the reef (all of the scraps can be recycled to make new Popsicles). It may take much, much longer.

On my first day at Biscayne, I went out with a group of students from the University of Miami and we tended to the Popsicles. Very few people in the world get to handle coral in this way (other than people that really don't know what they're doing and they're killing the coral by touching it and other people that are collecting coral -- probably illegally-- to sell it). It appears to be the only experiment of its kind. There are labs that grow coral, but this is out in the wild.
Having the coral in the wild does create some problems. All kinds of things grow on the Popsicles and can overgrow the coral. Algae and firecorals grow on the epoxy and Popsiclesticks and must be removed occassionally. That's where student and volunteer aid (e.g., me) comes in. What are these students doing in this picture? Scraping firecoral (yeah, that's what that burning sensation was) and algae off of the Popsicles so that the coral can be weighed and have a mug-shot taken. First we had to dive down and collect the corals. Covered in overgrowth, knives were drawn and Popsicles were scraped unitl the green could be seen (like the Popsicles in the first picture). Doing this helps determine the growth rates of the corals itself (to determine how many lifetimes it will take to restore a piece of reef destroyed by a careless boater, for example). Once scraped a crack-team of coral weighers would scan the bar codes, weight the Coralsicles, and take a picture of the growth (to determine area). (How come I seem to get my foot in so many pictures?)
This project amazes me. In academia, it would be difficult or impossible to obtain funding for a project that takes 10 years to get results. What kind of person would consider starting a project that will take a lifetime to complete? To many it may seem futile or misguided. To me it's stunningly ambitious.

Rough Seas, Pokey Things, Slow Moving Torpedos, Elusive Iguanas and NASCAR

2008-11-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Seas have been rough. And it feels really cold in Florida. What's up with that? I appear to have become what some people down here call an SFP (South Florida Pansy). It's been really cold. I even had to get a winter hat! Conditions have left me a bit trapped. This past weekend a massive NASCAR race created traffic that prevented easy access to and from the park (the NASCAR track is another site to be had -- just like Mt. Trashmore and Turkey Point Nuclear Plant-- near here). Plus, the weather has been ruining good fish census days. We attempted a dive last week. It lasted about 2 minutes at about 4 feet. Our boats was taking on water and we were getting tossed about. We got in anyway and found that we couldn't more than a few feet. Plus, we couldn't tell the difference between a surgeon fish and a parrotfish. I haven't been back in the water since. My time has been filled with endangered cacti, watching manatee when I go on a run along a channel, and trying to find the elusive and invasive green iguanas that are in the park. Fortunately, those may all leave me with post for my blog. I'm about to write one up on coral popsicles.

Look to the Sea

2008-11-08T13:34:00.001-08:00

Much of Biscayne National Park is underwater. To work in the park, I need to drive a boat a lot, so I spent my first week in a Motorboat Operator Certification Course (MOCC) which allows me to operate the boats on the park. Although much of the park is underwater it's not always very underwater. That is, it can be extremely shallow and navigating around the area can be difficult especially when wave action is high and it is difficult to see the reef or shoal ahead. Driving away from the headquarters on a park boat provides beautiful views of vast expanses of the bay, the park's islands and the open ocean. Indeed, it's the preferred direction to be looking in the park because when you look back toward headquarters there are three huge landmarks that can be used for navigation. Unfortunately, they're all eyesores. There's downtown Miami (the least offensive) to the North then one of the highest points in the surrounding area (perhaps in all of Florida)....a hill known as Mt. Trashmore. Yep. The tallest piece of land is a trash heap. A final navigational aid is known as Turkey Point. It's a huge nuclear power plant. Turkey Point is especially useful for navigating at night because it's the brightest thing around.
Having passed my MOCC tests I am allowed to drive under supervision until I have enough hours to take the boats out on my own. Once I finished those tests, I had to test for my "blue card" which is the certification that allows me to dive with the park service (red cards are for fire, etc.). Now I'm a DIT (diver in training) until I have enough dives to be a real diver with the park service. Fortunately, I have been able to do some work too. A few of us have started a new protocol in the park for doing reef fish surveys. It consists of a lot of sitting in one spot and spinning 'round and 'round. Since this is my first time diving in Florida, I'm learning a lot of new fish and seeing species that are new to me. I watched a beautiful Blue Parrotfish the other day for some time. It could be a little while before I have many pics from here, but I'll try to have some soon. I wish that I had had my camera a couple of days ago because I dove into a whole bunch of ctenophores (comb jellies) and the biggest jellyfish that I have ever seen. They were light pink (especially their gonads) and as big around as my waist. It was spectacular.

Dead. Face down in the Sand, Sixteen Feet Under

2008-11-05T03:28:00.000-08:00

My last dives in Bonaire consisted of damage assessment and attempting to pull corals that were broken or overturned by tropical-storm-turned-hurricane Omar. I wanted to share a few pictures of the damage from Omar. The storm overturned, broke, shattered or buried corals, especially those at the crest of the reef and in the shallows. Here a couple of connected brain corals (Diploria strigosa) are laying face down in the sand and rubble. I was able to turn this coral head over, along with others much larger (some much larger than me). However, in the end, after only a short time in the sand many polyps were dead. If I found a coral that was buried deep in the sand, it was almost always dead when I pulled it out. The white area in the mustard hill coral (Porites asteroides) below is the portion that died while in the sand. In some cases very old coral heads like the mountainous star coral (Montastrea annularis) in this picture was probably 4 feet tall, but bio-erosion had made its base very thin. The Montastrea cavernosa that was growing on the base of this structure was torn apart when the coral fell. Often severe damage occurred to other corals as Montastrea annularis broke into pieces and crushed other corals underneath.

Turning over these corals in Bonaire may have saved some polyps and a bit of the reef. I'm now in a park where damage occurs to corals not only from storms, but frequently from boats that crash into the coral. Richard Curry at Biscayne National Park is running a novel project to try and save the corals that are damaged from boat groundings. Soon I'll have a post about this very long-term experiment in a coral nursery. Hopefully I'll have more time to put into these posts in the near future (getting access to government computers takes a long time).

Sequential Hermaphroditism: A Well-timed Sex Change

2008-11-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

Sex change without surgery occurs in a number of animal species. It is known as sequential hermaphroditism. Some animals are hermaphroditic and have both male and female reproductive parts and others switch between the being male and female. Usually, this switch goes one way and is not reversed, such a strategy is known as sequential hermaphroditism. I see a lot of these sequential hermaphrodites on the reef. Some of the most colorful fish on the reef are parrotfish (see Fishes in the Sea Part 2 and 3). Generally the most colorful parrotfish that you're likely to see, like this stoplight parrotfish, are male, but most of those started out as females or as males that are incognito. Here's a picture of a large female. The typical sexual cycle for one of these fish is to start as a little juvenile female and at some point enter a harem and mate with the large, colorful, and desireable male controlling the harem. At some point, the big male is going to lose control of his harem because it gets to big and splits or he dies and at that point testosterone in the largest female will skyrocket and turn the female into an aggressive, harem guarding and colorful male. At this point the fish is said to be in its terminal phase. Turning male is the beginning of the end for these fish and the last sex that they'll be. At this point in its life, it will spend considerable time time fending off other males, including those that look female.
So if you see a pretty parrotfish that looks like it has makeup on its face, it's a male.

Back in the USA; Pics from Bonaire

2008-10-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

I've arrived at Biscayne National Park in Florida. Now that I'm in the USA, I seem to have less connectivity. I don't have an internet connection and cell phones don't work where I live in the park. Strange when I had these things while living on small islands in the Caribbean.
I'm spending the week taking a course on motor boat operation with other folks from the park, USGS employees and University of Miami students. I don't have time to do much of a post, but I have a bunch that are partially done. Instead, I'm going to throw up a few pictures from some of my last dives in Bonaire.

Below is a picture of a PhD student from Spain, Maria, who offered to be my dive buddy on my last dives in Bonaire. Those were some of the only dives that I had a buddy. We went in at one dive site (Angel City) and floated over to a wrecked ship named the Hilma Hooker. It was a nice dive. On our previous dive we saw the largest barracuda that either of us had ever seen our lives (this is not it, but it is a good-sized barracuda). The big barracuda was absurdly large. It must have been 6 feet long or longer bigger round than me. Ah, another branching anemone. I love these things!When I was reseting coral turned over by Omar, I often woke up the night owls, the brittle stars. These stars were actually out during the day hanging on a sponge.

Fishes in the Sea Part 3: A Game of Hide and Go Eat

2008-10-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

In previous posts (Fishes in the Sea Parts 1 and 2), I highlighted daytime invertebrate hunting and herbivorous strategies in reef fish. Let's consider more predatory (e.g., piscivorous) strategies. Being a predator can be tough work. Fish that you want to eat don't want to be eaten. Plus, sometimes damselfish beat you up just like they do to everything else (see *, **, or ***). One strategy is to be really fast and chase down prey (e.g., Bar Jacks) and another is to be cryptic and strike before you are seen.
A fish that takes on the "hide and go eat" strategy, is a trumpetfish. They're often seen floating upside-down or aligning with something straight (e.g., the trumpetfish on the left in soft coral or on the right with a pier pillar).
In a previous post on eels dying in Bonaire (Dead Eels), my video showed a Graysby closely following a sharptailed eel, perhaps using the eel to somehow increase its own foraging success. Below is a narrated (that wasn't fun) video of similar, and common, behavior, a trumpetfish following a parrotfish.

Sometimes trumpetfish will hide behind other fish, like these tang.

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I've even had one use me as cover.

Grouper use a combination of burst swimming and camouflage in their hunting strategy. Like many fish, they can change their color, blending in better with their background. They don't have the skills of an octopus, but when sitting still they can be hard to see.

I've posted pictures and videos of other cryptic fish in the past, including barracuda, bat fish and scorpionfish, but I haven't posted a 3-D picture in a long time, so here's a 2D scorpionfish looking cryptic and a 3D scorpionfish blending in with the newly exposed rubble in the shallows after Omar.